The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

Yours as ever,

Davis Cooper

Chapter Five ❋

Stone, not skin, a face of ivory tattooed

by time, by paint, the

horns rising above his brow, the

steam rising with every step.

—The Wood Wife, Davis Cooper

Maggie turned the stereo up loud to cover the banging on the roof. The music of Josquin des Pres filled the house with the sound of medieval instruments. Nigel used to say Josquin’s music made him believe in the existence of angels. This was an early Estampie recording, and it was still one of her favorites.

She hummed along with harp and viol as she divided stacks of Davis’s papers into Letters, Memos, Bills, Lists, Notes/Poems/Old, Notes/Poems/New. Stacks that had simply grown larger and no less overwhelming over the last two weeks. She paused, holding a phone bill in her hand dated March 1981. This music took her back as many years, when Estampie was still a loose group of musicians moonlighting from their more profitable gigs, gathering to practice in the kitchen of her Amsterdam flat.

She put down the papers suddenly, wondering what on earth she was doing here, on this mountain, in this dry, hard land? She wanted to be sitting in that little cafe at the corner of their old street, with a cup of strong coffee and a glass of cognac, canal boats bobbing gently in the water, tall punked-out Dutch students passing by, and Nigel across the table enthusing about some early-music instrument maker he’d just found.

The phone rang, interrupting these thoughts. Nigel always knew when she was thinking of him. She picked up the receiver and said “Good morning Nigel,” and he didn’t seem startled by the greeting. “How’s New York?”

“I don’t know. I’m in a hotel room,” he said. “All right, don’t be mad, but I just happened to be talking to Jennifer at HarperCollins this morning, and so I mentioned what you were up to. She’s interested, babe. We’re talking six figures here. They’re into biography now in New York, and she thinks a book on Davis Cooper could really sell. It’s the mystery of it, Cooper’s death, and that old business with Naverra.”

“Nigel, slow down,” Maggie interrupted, feeling swept away by his strong current again. “And don’t call me babe. It’s Nicole who’s babe. Call me that again and I’ll break your face.”

He sighed. “You’re mad.”

“Damn straight, I am. I asked you not to talk to Jennifer.”

“You’ve got to strike while the fire is hot, Mags. You know New York. They might not be into biography six months from now.”

“That’s iron, Nigel.”

“What?”

“Strike while the iron’s hot. Never mind. I don’t know why we’re having this conversation. I’m not ready to talk to a publisher.”

“Oh.” Nigel paused. “Well, I’m afraid Jennifer’s going to call you today. No, no, don’t hang up on me, Puck. Look, I’m trying to help.”

“I know, Nigel,” she said, exasperated, tossing her sweet vision of Amsterdam cafes right out the kitchen window. She’d been forgetting the reality of life with Nigel. After enthusing about the instrument maker he would have proceeded to convince her she needed to give him a thousand bucks to buy a crumhorn or something. And then dashed off to meet his latest lover.

“Look,” she said, “I know you mean well, but I’m still finding my feet here. And I’d like to do it without interference.” For once in my life, she added silently. “So why don’t you call Jennifer back and tell her I’ll call when I’m ready.”

“All right,” he said in that contrite voice that always won her back again. “So how is it going? It must be strange living in a dead man’s house.”

“You know how it’s going. You’ve called every day since I got here—nothing’s changed. Though I’ll tell you, it’s interesting. Davis Cooper’s life is like a jigsaw puzzle that you know probably has a fabulous picture on it—only too many of the pieces are missing. I’m just hoping if I keep at this long enough, I’ll be able to fit together the pieces that are left.”

“How long is long enough?” he said. “You’ve been away, what, two weeks now? How long are you going to be on that mountain?”

“I’ve no idea. But Nige, I meant it. I’m not coming back to L.A. You’ve got a life with Nicole now.”

There was silence on the other end. Then he said, “Damn. You are mad. You never bring Nicole into it unless you’re really pissed off at me.”

“Oh, no worse than usual,” she said with a smile. “So cheer up. You’ve got a concert to do.”

It was half an hour later by the time she got off the phone with her ex-husband. The banging overhead had stopped, and Fox was sitting on her porch.

She stood in the doorway. “Do you always make it a habit to listen to phone conversations?”

He shrugged. “I can hear you just as well from the roof. What do you want me to do, go home whenever the phone rings? Or just pretend that I can’t hear?”

She stepped onto the porch and sat beside him on the steps. “Sorry, it’s my husband I’m irritated with. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“Husband?”

“Ex-husband I mean.”

“Not so very ex from the sound of it.”

“Not so ex as I’d like. No, I don’t mean that. Nigel’s a good pal. He just wants to run everybody else’s life except his own. And that he hires managers for.”

“What is he, some kind of bigshot then?”

“Hmmm. Nigel Vanderlin. He’s—”

“Estampie.”

“That’s the one.” Maggie squinted at the sun slanting through the cottonwoods. “Look,” she said, “there he is.”

The skinny coyote trotted up the wash. It stopped to stare at them rakishly, then it leapt the other bank.

Fox said, “John and Lillian lost Cody, did you hear? Not long after we saw her. She got out of the pen, and she hasn’t come back. I reckon she will—their ranch is her turf and she can’t get far on that leg. But we should keep an